


Escape is in My Blood

by enigma731



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Developing Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-03-16 22:17:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3504779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigma731/pseuds/enigma731
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint and Natasha are both solitary by nature, but in the end that's just one more piece of the way they fit together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Escape is in My Blood

**Author's Note:**

> This fic pretty much demanded to be written after I read [this set interview](http://marvel.com/news/movies/24173/jeremy_renner_divulges_details_on_shield_and_the_age_of_ultron) in which Renner talks about Clint being a loner, and also his history with Natasha. Contains no actual Age of Ultron spoilers, just a few moments of vague speculation.

_Hold my hand,_   
_I can hear the ghost calling._   
_Help me stand,_   
_Even if the sky is falling._   
_And I want you to know,_   
_I can't do it alone_

([X](http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/fray/holdmyhand.html))

1.

Barton visits her in Medical the morning after the seemingly-interminable interrogations and evaluations have finally ended. She’s lost track of time, can’t say whether it’s been one day or ten, but she’s wearing thin, at once overwhelmed and terribly lonely

“Thought I just got rid of you people,” Natasha tells him when the door swings open. She hasn’t seen him since arriving here, can’t decide whether she’s relieved or frustrated. All of her instincts are screaming at her to shut down, go into hiding, but that doesn’t seem an option now that she’s pledged her allegiance to S.H.I.E.L.D. They are nothing like her previous employers, but still dangerous in their own right.

“What kind of people am I?” Barton asks, giving her an inquisitive look that’s not quite a smirk. He seems far too at-ease here, moving to sit in the chair beside the thin cot that’s the only other furniture she’s allowed at the moment.

“I don’t know yet,” Natasha admits, deciding to be honest. It isn’t as if she’s got much to lose, all things considered.

“And yet you want to get rid of me,” says Barton, though his tone is undeniably good-natured.

“I don’t do the small talk thing,” says Natasha. “And I’m fine on my own. So unless there’s something you want from me--”

“No,” he answers, not even waiting for her to finish that sentence. “And we don’t have to talk.”

“You’re just going to sit there?” she asks, frowning.

Barton shrugs, then takes a notepad and the nub of a pencil out of his back pocket, opening it to a page that appears to contain some kind of schematic. “Not if you tell me to leave.”

Natasha considers for a moment, can’t find the resolve to make him go. Maybe it’s a weakness, maybe she just doesn’t have the energy. Maybe she’s more desperate for kindness than she’d like to admit. She settles back onto the cot and stares at the ceiling, trying to quiet the doubts and the panic that have been on her mind since she agreed to give this honest living thing a try.

He’s still there when she wakes hours later, her skin drenched with sweat and her heart thundering in her own ears. He says nothing then, either, just shifts closer to the bed and holds her hand until her shoulders quit shaking.

 

2.

A little over a year passes before S.H.I.E.L.D. calms down enough to let Natasha rent a place of her own, and even then, it’s only with a tracking bracelet locked to her wrist at all times.

She doesn’t mind, really. There’s been something oddly comforting about her tiny S.H.I.E.L.D. quarters--still the largest single space that’s ever had any semblance of belonging to her. Everything has its place at S.H.I.E.L.D., each day between assignments progressing by routine.

Now, there’s something unnerving about standing alone in her new apartment. It’s only four rooms, but it seems vast, especially because she doesn’t have many belongings to fill it. She’s still more focused on actions than possessions.

The fact that she can hear muffled conversations on the other side of the walls, footsteps moving through the course of an afternoon above her head, does nothing but unsettle her more. It reminds her of the way thoughts echo around inside her mind on nights when she can’t find sleep.

Natasha lets three hours slip away in solitude, tries to force herself to get used to the feeling, then grabs her phone and sends a message.

Clint arrives half an hour later, with Chinese takeout and a soft grin. “Hey. Heard you needed company?”

“I don’t--have much of anywhere to sit,” says Natasha, gesturing at the empty room.

It’s far from the most uncomfortable place she and Clint have been together, though, so he just shrugs before sitting on the floor and spreading out the food like a picnic. They eat in comfortable silence, shoulder to shoulder in the beginning of the new life she’s building.

 

3

After the smoke clears, after the Avengers have gone their separate ways and S.H.I.E.L.D.’s finished its many debriefings, Natasha drives Clint home.

There’s hardly any traffic, for once, people having either fled the city or chosen to barricade themselves inside their houses. It feels almost eerie, passing blocks that have been reduced to rubble, neighborhoods without power.

Clint lives far enough away that his apartment is untouched, though that feels surreal in its own way. He hasn’t been home in months, has been spending all of his time underground in New Mexico, and it’s Natasha who unlocks the door tonight when she realizes that he isn’t making any move to do it.

He takes a few steps into the apartment, waits for her to turn on the lights. Inside it smells a bit stale, but everything seems in place otherwise. Clint remains silent, looking lost in his own home, and Natasha thinks she knows exactly how that feels.

“Hey,” she says quietly, touching his arm to make sure he’s in the present, make sure he’s hearing her. “You want to sleep?”

“No,” he says firmly, and at least he sounds certain about that. She can’t say she blames him.

“You want to be alone, then?” she offers, though she thinks she already knows the answer.

“No,” he replies, more sharply, clearly a little alarmed at the possibility. “No, I really don’t.”

“Okay,” Natasha agrees. When he still doesn’t budge, she decides to give him space, sitting on his couch and plucking the remote off the table. She turns the television to the first channel that isn’t reporting on the day’s events, which turns out to be an infomercial for unbreakable plates. The sound is calming, though, so she leaves it on.

After a while, Clint moves to sit beside her, then shifts further to rest his head in her lap. Natasha says nothing, just curls her fingers into his hair and rubs his back as his whole body trembles.

 

4.

She doesn’t see Clint in the immediate aftermath of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s fall. He isn’t there when they finally land in the wreckage, or when she goes to visit Steve in the hospital. He’s been on an assignment overseas recently, she knows, but she isn’t too concerned. Clint has survived much worse, she knows. He will get through this too.

The first appearance he makes is at her hearing on Capitol Hill, hiding in plain sight as a reporter. He doesn’t look up from the notepad he’s scribbling on dutifully, doesn’t meet her eyes. She sees his reserved little smile, though, when she’s said her piece, and knows that it’s for her.

The next time, she’s finishing a plate of greasy eggs at the diner her current cover has the poor judgment to frequent. She’s only been coming here for a couple of weeks, is still carefully building this alter-ego, but when she looks up to ask the waitress for a refill on her coffee, Clint is seated two booths over, fingers playing out an absent-minded rhythm on the sticky surface of the table.

Another three months after S.H.I.E.L.D. goes down in flames, she’s in the produce section at the grocery store, examining nectarines when she senses his presence behind her. Natasha turns slowly, prepared to defend herself if necessary, if she’s somehow mistaken.

She isn’t, though--Clint is standing there in a baseball cap and the tackiest _I <3 New York_ t-shirt she thinks she’s ever seen, grinning like the idiot he’s never been.

“Hi,” he says warmly, and it hits her in a rush that she’s _missed_ the sound of his voice. “Stark wants me to tell you that you should really start taking his calls.”

 

5.

Tony Stark’s idea of a housewarming party, it turns out, is a raucous affair which seems to have half of New York in attendance. The communal levels of the Tower look more like rooms of an elaborate nightclub, complete with deafening music and a laser light show.

It’s actually fun, Natasha has to admit, for the first three hours or so. There’s something exhilarating about letting her guard down here, focusing on nothing but the music and the triumphant light in her friends’ eyes. They’ve all spent far too much of the past few months confronting the sobering truth of S.H.I.E.L.D., and HYDRA, and the work that’s still to come. They’re all long overdue for a celebration.

Sometime after midnight, she realizes that she hasn’t seen Clint for a while, and the whole atmosphere of the party is beginning to get overwhelming. Nobody notices when she slips out, still lost in the beat of the music, the joy that’s pervading the whole room, and Natasha smiles to herself as she steps into the cool and the quiet of the elevator.

She checks Clint’s personal floor first, but isn’t surprised not to find him there. He’s never been much for enclosed spaces when given the choice.

It’s a full moon, she realizes, when she gets to the roof, and perfectly clear, so the stars are visible even eclipsed by the lights of the city. The air is crisp, not quite cold, and smells of impending autumn. The first sign of Clint that she gets is the familiar _thunk_ of an arrow sinking into one of the targets he brought up here the day after moving in.

“Hi,” says Natasha, because she knows better than to surprise him, though she’s fairly certain he’s already aware of her presence.

“Hey,” Clint echoes, smiling at her over his shoulder even as he sinks another arrow into the bullseye.

“Get tired of dancing?” she asks, moving to stand several yards behind him, safely out of his way. She’s never doubted his aim, never viewed him as a threat, but she doesn’t want to break his rhythm, either.

Clint laughs. “You know I don’t dance.”

“You do with me,” she teases, and she can practically sense his eye-roll though he’s still facing away from her.

“Isn’t that what we’re doing now?” he retorts, letting another two arrows fly in quick succession.

“Fair point,” says Natasha, settling down to sit on the cool surface of the roof, looking up at the stars as she listens to his shots, steady like the beating of a heart.

 

+1

It takes Natasha three weeks to make it back to New York. The aftermath of Ultron and his network of drones has left the world in chaos, infrastructure so damaged in many places that it will take months or even years to rebuild. It’s eerily reminiscent of the Chitauri’s destruction, except that the devastation stretches around the world instead of being confined to a few city blocks.

She hasn’t heard from any of the others, global communications more crippled than any other system, the world plunged into the sort of information blackout previously reserved for apocalyptic horror movies. This is what she was afraid of, when they had decided to split up for the final stand of the battle. They’ll be at the Tower now, though, she thinks--They’ll be at the Tower if they’ve made it through alive.

The Tower is still standing when it finally comes into view, but she doesn’t make it all the way to the front door, doesn’t even get close. Instead she sees Clint from more than a block away, picking through the rubble of what used to be a bank. The relief that washes over her is overwhelming, almost brings her to her knees then and there. Instead Natasha lets it drive her forward, breaking into a run as she calls out to him.

Clint meets her halfway, pulls her into a hug so tight that for a moment she can’t breathe, doesn’t even want to as she lets the solid warmth of his body ground her, lets all of this feel like a victory for the first time since the fighting ended.

“You’re alive,” says Clint, and she can’t help laughing, practically giddy over the miracle that they’ve both survived, though the world still has so much healing to do.

“Looks like you are too,” Natasha tells him, resting her chin on his shoulder.

“Hey,” he breathes against her ear, and there’s still a ragged edge to his voice, even as she can hear that he’s aiming toward levity. “I know you need your space, but that was _way too far_.”

“I love you too,” says Natasha. She curls her fingers into the fabric of his shirt and decides she isn’t letting go for a long, long while.


End file.
